Part 10
"What are you doing here?" Remus Lupin asked in a dangerously quiet voice as he approached the bar.
"Just having a quiet drink," Wormtail replied as he edged away from the man he hadn't seen in just over two years, and who had threatened to kill him.
"Get out, now," Remus hissed. "Before I forget where we are and take up again where we left off the last time we met."
Wormtail moved in his seat, looked desperately towards the door, back at Remus and back to the door again.
"I mean it," Remus advised, casting a cautious glance towards where the others he'd arrived with were sitting waiting for him to return with the round of drinks.
"I'm here on business," Wormtail finally muttered, deciding that much as Remus was scaring him, the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters scared him even more and he wasn't going to risk going back to them without speaking to the werewolf community. He looked at the group Remus had arrived with; they didn't look so bad, quite civilised really.
"I don't care why you're here," Remus warned. "Leave…now."
"Five minutes," Wormtail asked. "Just five minutes."
Remus nodded, looking far from happy as he waved the barman over and ordered drinks.
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Severus watched as Hermione appeared to struggle to remember the correct order of the ingredients. He noted that her memory was better than he'd given her credit for and although she was working slower than in the classroom with the instructions she was actually working accurately.
The sound of the doorbell ringing from above made the both of them jump and he watched Hermione drop far more powdered moonstone into the potion than was required.
"You'd better scoop some of that out before it sinks from the surface," he advised, pointing to the shelf of empty beakers and bowls.
Hermione nodded and he turned away to go see who it was that was now persistently ringing his doorbell.
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Wormtail downed the rest of his beer in one and followed Remus towards the table of werewolves lurking in the far corner of the pub.
As he approached one or two of them gave him a small nod of recognition; none of them looked like they had any interest in what he had to say.
"I'm here on behalf of the Dark Lord," Wormtail began.
"Really?" came the sarcastic answer from a scruffy looking red-haired man at the far corner of the table.
"He's not very happy with you all," Wormtail continued, and a few of the men around the table cast meaningful glances at each other.
"You're drawing attention to yourselves and our world," Remus interjected in a hissed tone. Wormtail threw him a grateful look before he realised that it was merely coincidence that Remus was here for the same purpose that he was. He wasn't trying to help him because of their old friendship, it was merely that their agendas coincided.
"Attacking the son of one of the local MPs was plain reckless," Remus continued. Wormtail sat back in his seat and absent-mindedly reached for the beer of one of the werewolves. He felt it snatched back out of his hand before it had reached his lips.
"Our world?" spat one of the men who'd remained silent up until this point. "Now which world would that be? You know as well as the rest of us, maybe even better than some of us, that we'll never be a part of the wizarding world. Or do you still think you can find your place in their society?"
Remus took a drink from his own pint as he considered his reply. Wormtail edged backwards in his seat as he felt the tension rising. He wondered whether it might be worth leaving now and hoping Voldemort considered his job completed.
"Whoever wins this war will be the ones that we have to coexist with," Remus pointed out. He gestured to Wormtail who shifted in his seat under the steady gazes of the others. "Even the Dark Lord thinks you've overstepped the mark this time. Maybe it's time to consider that even if he should gain complete control, you still won't have the freedoms that he's promised you. It might be time to consider working legitimately for better rights for all of us inflicted with this curse."
At the end of the short speech Wormtail clapped enthusiastically whilst the rest of the werewolves sat in silence.
"Erm…" Wormtail faltered when he realised that he'd been cheering on the wrong side. "Noble sentiments…but you mistake the Dark Lord's intentions."
"The Dark Lord wishes to have our world exposed by reckless werewolves attacking anyone they run across?" Remus asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No, of course not," Wormtail hesitated again. "He just wants to make sure that everyone's…er…working on the same page."
"You mean he wants to control us!"
Wormtail didn't even catch who had spoken first as the rest of the group expressed their own dissatisfaction at being taken for granted and used by the Dark Lord since his return to power.
"He's using you!" Remus pressed home the advantage Wormtail had inadvertently given him.
Thirty minutes later Wormtail left the pub wondering just whether to count his first mission as a victory or a defeat.
On the plus side, he'd come through it alive and the werewolves would not be randomly attacking anyone in the York area.
On the down side, Remus had pretty much convinced most of the group that the Dark Lord was using them and they had no intention of following his orders in the future.
Perhaps a partial report would be better. No sense troubling the Dark Lord with bad news if it wasn't necessary.
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Severus opened the front door. With a groan he looked down to see Doreen had come to call…and had brought her rabbit too.
"We've come to play with your pet rat!" Doreen declared as the frantically struggling rabbit escaped her arms and shot through the living room.
"He's out," he replied automatically before he realised how ridiculous it sounded. Doreen clearly agreed as she slipped past him and chased after Bugs whilst calling out for 'ratty'.
Severus looked back out of the front door and glanced up the street towards his young visitor's own house. There was no sign of either of the parents coming to drag their daughter back home. He'd have to find a way to get rid of her himself, preferably before she noticed anything odd about his house.
He shut the door and hurried back into the living room, just in time to see the girl reach her hand into the box of chocolate frogs.
"Can I have a chocolate?" she asked as she opened one of the boxes.
The chocolate frog leapt from her hands and she let out a squeal of fright.
The sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs warned him that Hermione had heard the scream too.
"It's alive!" Doreen cried as she jumped onto the sofa and glared at the now stationary frog on the carpet.
Hermione burst through the door to the basement her wand at the ready.
"Put that away," Severus ordered with a glare. Thankfully Hermione realised her error at once and did as she was told.
Thankfully Doreen hadn't even noticed Hermione. She was jumping from one foot to the other on the sofa that was creaking ominously.
Wondering if this wasn't some sort of horrible retribution for all the memory charms his mother had been forced to work on the girl's mother, Severus pulled out his wand and set about casting his own.
Five minutes later the girl was on her way home, none the wiser to existence of the world of magic.
"How's the potion coming along?" Severus asked Hermione who was still lingering in the basement doorway. He fervently hoped that she had managed to brew a decent one. If he hadn't needed the Draught of Peace before he certainly needed it now.
Hermione turned round and returned to the basement, Severus close behind her.
As he walked down the stairs he had a sneaking feeling he'd forgotten something important. He brushed the feeling aside as he looked into the cauldron.
Upstairs Bugs scrambled into the cupboard that contained the cleaning utensils and set about devouring the remaining stash of cakes.